


Stuck Pages

by AntivanCrafts



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, M/M, aerith/cloud/zack, backstory shenanigans, polyamorous shipping, this will be utterly canon noncompliant when the remake comes out and it is now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 20:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntivanCrafts/pseuds/AntivanCrafts
Summary: Counting through the days leading Aerith, Cloud, Zack, and their friends to Radiant Garden, and all the lives that spiraled away between their fingers.





	Stuck Pages

_**Thirteen years ago** _

"Don't talk to him," Cloud heard a mother tell her child in the market. The mother's hand shot out to snag her child's, pulling them back in where they had started towards Cloud. "His mother is no better than she ought to be, and we all know how _he'll_ turn out." The child asked a question, but Cloud had already turned away and huddled into the shelter of the vegetable stand he was running on his mother's behalf. No one had bought anything today, just like they hadn't yesterday. The only things they came to the stall for was preventatives or to ask him about where he'd last seen animals on his travels.

Cloud spent most of his days walking the game trails on the wooded side of the mountains hunting, and everyone always seemed to overcome their own prejudices easily enough when they wanted something. Today wasn't one of those days. Cloud traced the edge of discolored skin on his wrist with a frown, the soft, almost invisible arch of his brows drawing together. He wondered sometimes what it would be like to have people to talk to besides his mother. He wasn't resentful or angry, not at her, but... Sometimes he felt a twinge of it towards other children who laughed or parroted back the words their parents had taught them, and he wondered. Then he felt guilty. It wasn't his mother's fault that people didn't like that he didn't have a father, just a sweater and a pair of illegible dog tags. 

 _"Do you think my wish will come true today?"_ He remembered asking his mother, and squeezed his hands tightly around each other.

_"Oh, Cloud. Rain falls on everyone. Sometimes its all you can do to hold your breath and not drown in it, but it will end."_

"One way or the other," Cloud muttered. He lifted a hand to scrub at his eyes. When he let it fall, he almost thought he saw a girl standing in the middle of the crowd in a flimsy white paper dress that was completely unsuitable to the weather, but when he looked more closely, she was gone.

 _Just as well,_ he thought. She'd get sick, running around like that in this weather. He wondered where her mother was. 

 

_**Twelve years ago** _

"Don't talk to her," Aerith heard one of the techs whisper to another. Their eyes flickered to hers through the glass separating her from the main wing of the science lab. "She's a cetra, she'll hear all your secrets before you get a word out." 

Aerith drew her knees up and hugged them close to her face so she wouldn't have to look at them anymore. She didn't need to hear them talk. The planet whispered to her whether or not she was awake, let alone whether the person it was whispering about was talking out loud or just in their head. She knew what they meant. Knew the stories they told each other about her and Ilfana, just like she knew that she properly ought to call Ilfana her mother, but she only saw the woman that had given birth to her when Professor Gast insisted. She knew a lot of things, but not what she really wanted to know.

"Please," she whispered between numb lips. "Tell me something real." 

When she looked up, she saw something new. Someone. There was a boy with dark hair that brushed his shoulders and a nervous way he rocked back and forth standing right between the scientists. He wasn't looking directly at her, but his body was turned towards hers like he was listening to her tell a secret. She was still looking when he vanished, but she tried not to show surprise. The techs already asked too many questions she didn't know the answers to, no need to give them another.

 _Soon_ , the planet whispered to her in a medley of a hundred voices, a thousand. _We see you. They will see you, too._

"I want to go home," she insisted louder, loud enough the techs turned back, even though she knew there was no home to go back to. She hadn't ever known anything but the science department and its familiar cast of faces. The planet told her that she would, even showed them to her, but it only frightened her. The faces all belonged to grown-ups, and had flashes of places and words behind them that tasted like metal and mako. She covered her ears and started to chant until the techs made her stop.

 

**_Eleven years ago_ **

"Don't talk to him," one of the farmhands grinned at another, nudging them when they saw Zack looking. "See the way he's biting his fingers? He's a changeling. They're never meant to stay long. Get attached, and you'll only end up disappointed when the ffolk take him back."

Zack quickly yanked his fingers away from his mouth, but it was too late, the damage was done. He tried to smile, but he could tell by their body language that both of his family's farmhands weren't going to talk to him anymore. Not now. He let his smile fall away briefly, before hauling it back up. His mother always said to his father that his smile was infectious. Maybe, if someone saw him smiling, they'd want to smile, too.

He started to turn away, but just as another farmhand passed by, he caught a brief glimpse of a small boy with golden-brown skin shot through with paler patches that almost looked like clouds. The boy was hunched in on himself, crying, but started to look up as Zack watched. There was an impression of wide, startled purple eyes before another hand passed, yelling a laughing word to the first, and instead of seeing the boy again on the other side, he was gone.

Zack stood up straighter, and started to call out, but what would he say. It would just make everyone whisper about him again, that he was seeing things. They would probably say it was the ffolk, and he scoffed, but there was unease clinging to the back of his throat. He'd almost felt needed for once, more than he'd ever been in a town that distrusted him. It was silly, but he almost wished the boy had been real, just so he could have met someone who didn't already know his name.

"Tomorrow," he told himself in a strong, confident voice. "Tomorrow, someone will smile back."

 

**_Eleven months ago_ **

"Don't talk to them," Cid said through the intercom. "Aerith, don't. You're only going to-"

"I know!" She said more sharply than she meant to, and winced. Aerith reached out and found Cloud and Zack's hands. "I know. We can't help them. I know. But I just..."

"What is it saying to you?" Cloud asked. His mouth was shaking, but his hand was rock steady under hers, and she was grateful. 

"Its screaming," she said softly, as soft as the planet was loud in its death throes. "The planet is screaming. She's dying, and I don't know what to do."

"You don't have to fix everything, Aer," Zack told her. His smile was strained, a ghost of its usual self, and Cloud found himself bending down to press his free hand to his mouth, hoping to find an answering one there. He didn't. "Saving everyone isn't your responsibility."

"It isn't yours either, Zack Fair," she said tartly, but she was laughing, leaning forward to catch Zack up in a kiss. Before she got there, there came an almighty screech of metal and the airship jerked, throwing everyone up in the air and then down. 

"Everybody hold on!" Cid shouted over the intercom. "There's a-"

"There's a what?" They heard Yuffie say from over by the door, and then the entire world went dark.


End file.
